Yellow Roses
by Rebecca Wolfe
Summary: Heero accepts a new mission, to eliminate some new rebels. Only when he gets their does he see their immidiate threat, but before he can destroy them the has to struggle through the flashbacks of a girl and her puppy . . .


"Mission: Accepted." Heero closed the communication screen and turned around in his chair. More rebels, and these ones didn't seem to care that everyone else was celebrating the holidays. He almost sighed, but held it in. He had never had much to celebrate, there was no reason for him to feel sorry he was on duty.   
Besides, this wasn't supposed to be difficult. He reached his gundam and entered the beautiful machine, the only true form of beauty in his opinion. He remembered saying as much to Releena and how she had stormed off. He couldn't think of why; sometimes that girl made no sense. No, he thought, she never makes any sense.  
While his gundam flew through the emptiness of space he reviewed the group of rebels he'd be eliminating. They were new, very radical and had been called a runaway cult by many; unfortunately they were also incredible large. Only now they supposedly had begun researching new weapons and had become enough of a threat to bother one of the infamous gundam pilots.   
He reached the location of their hidden colony on the moon after a short period of flight. Using Duo's birthday gift, a cloaking device to hide his gundam from radar, he landed near the colony without putting to use his beautiful weapon.  
His mission was only to bomb the research sector and kill the leader, but he still armed himself with enough to blow the moon apart and then slipped in among the shadows. Knocking out a technician, he slipped into his overalls and moved into the main complex unnoticed. He was surprised at the amount of people hiding there. He passed a room full of small children, a nursery for the rebels, and watched as little girl waved at him. He waved awkwardly back and continued toward the research sector, the map of the rebel's home imprinted into his memory.  
The mission became even easier when he saw that the leader was holding a meeting in the research sector with not only the scientists, but the other most powerful of his subordinates.   
As Heero decided which explosives to use, he listened to their conversation.  
"Are you sure you're willing to do this?"  
"We have no choice. They will not take us seriously. This will get their attention."  
"Whose attention? They will all be dead you moron!"  
"My decision is final. I understand your concern, but even if I were to change my mind, it wouldn't matter. In ten minuets, it's heading for earth, and the command has been locked. Nothing short of the destruction of every single computer system here will stop it."  
"But causing a nuclear reaction in the atoms of Gundanium . . . the earth will be gone in a flash and the moon very likely will be too! That means us!"  
"We're far enough under the surface, it's been calculated -"  
Heero froze and stopped listening. Apparently the rebels were much more of a threat than originally thought. Bringing up the image of the map in his mind, he calculated the distance to the armory, and swore at the results. There was no way he could span that distance in ten minutes. His only other option became quickly apparent, and without thinking he leapt into a vent and began detonating enough explosions to take out the entire place, if that's what it would take to destroy all the computers. Only when he had gotten the equipment ready did he remember the girl in the nursery.  
And suddenly his vision burned with the picture of a little girl and her puppy. He could feel the amazing softness of the yellow petals of the first flower that anyone had given him. He could hear the destruction of the building, the mistake that he had made. He relived those painful moments, re-felt the chill go through him as he saw the puppy lying there, no longer barking and pulling on the little girl's leash. The anger and hatred that followed, emotions stronger than he'd ever felt before and stronger than he'd ever felt after that, until now.  
He stared at the box of explosives, motionless, frozen in indecision. He couldn't do it again, he couldn't kill the girl and her puppy again. He couldn't. The yellow rose stayed in his mind. It was the victorious laughter of the men in the research lab that brought him back. And he remembered the bomb, the gundanium bomb. There would thousands of little girls and their puppies on earth, he realized. His stomach knotted in pain. No matter what he did, he was going to keep killing her. Keep blighting the little girl and her puppy from life. He had no choice this time. He thought his head would burst, so he threw himself against the side of the vent.  
The sharp pain in his skull cleared his mind, and he filled it with emptiness, trying to focus on his mission. Only the mission mattered. He had accepted, and Heero Yuy didn't fail a mission. He couldn't. He looked at his watch; five minutes had passed with him trapped in his memories. He didn't have much time to get out. He took in a deep breath, and set the bombs to go off in three minutes. He didn't trust himself with pressing the button after he got out; he may have weakened by then. Yellow roses tumbled through his mind, but he pushed them out and set the bomb, letting out a breath of relief. It was done.  
Heero jogged through the halls, ignoring the attention he drew to himself. He passed the nursery, almost falling when his stomach cramped with pain, but pushed himself onward. He'd been through worse. He reached his gundam, forty seconds left.  
Then Heero sat there, looking back. He knew how to keep himself from ever killing a little girl again. All he had to do was . . . nothing. Just stay there. But Heero knew he couldn't do it, couldn't destroy himself unless the mission depended on it and neither could he destroy his beautiful gundam without reason , and started Epyon's system and lifted off with ten seconds left.   
Looking to earth as the debris flew by him, all he could see were yellow roses, but Heero forced himself to think of all the girls and puppies he had saved.   
His voice caught in his throat the first time he tried to speak over the com unit, but he eventually managed to choke out "Mission: Accomplished."   
  



End file.
